digital content

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

Global Internet Report 2016Internet Society
Today we are at a defining moment in the evolution and growth of the Internet. Large-scale data breaches, uncertainties about the use of our data, cybercrime, surveillance and other online threats are eroding users’ trust and affecting how they use the Internet. Eroding trust is also affecting the way governments view the Internet, and, is shaping the policy environment for the Internet around the world. The 2016 Global Internet Report takes a close look at data breaches through an economic lens and provides five clear recommendations for a path forward.

What Does “Governance” Mean?Governance Journal
The normative goals of governance reform are twofold: more effective public policies, and procedures that are legitimate and accountable to the citizenry. Often the phrase “good governance” is intertwined with the anticorruption agenda. Drawing on the author's experience as a visiting researcher at the World Bank and as a scholar of both corruption and comparative politics, this essay unpacks the concept of governance and relates it to debates over ways to balance technical expertise and public participation to achieve better functioning governments.

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

Freedom on the Net 2016- Silencing the Messenger: Communication Apps Under PressureFreedom House
Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during anti-government protests. Public-facing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been subject to growing censorship for several years, but in a new trend, governments increasingly target voice communication and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. These services are able to spread information and connect users quickly and securely, making it more difficult for authorities to control the information landscape or conduct surveillance.

The limitations of randomised controlled trialsVOX/The Centre for Economic Policy Research
In recent years, the use of randomised controlled trials has spread from labour market and welfare programme evaluation to other areas of economics, and to other social sciences, perhaps most prominently in development and health economics. This column argues that some of the popularity of such trials rests on misunderstandings about what they are capable of accomplishing, and cautions against simple extrapolations from trials to other contexts.

New developments and curiosities from a changing global media landscape: People, Spaces, Deliberation brings trends and events to your attention that illustrate that tomorrow's media environment will look very different from today's, and will have little resemblance to yesterday's.

Despite a widely documented global decline in Internet freedom, people around the world still embrace fundamental democratic values, including the right to free speech.

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities in 32 of 38 countries polled state it is important to live in a country where people can use the internet without government censorship. Pew interviewed 40,786 people between April 5 - May 21, 2015 and found that even though internet freedom ranks last among the six broad democratic rights included on the survey, a median of 50% believe it is very important to live in a country with an uncensored internet. The strongest support for internet freedom is found in Argentina, the U.S., Germany and Spain, where about 70% of the populations consider it very important, and it the lowest support can be found in Burkina Faso and Indonesia, where only 21% in both countries think it’s important.

There is a strong correlation between the percentage of people in a country who use the internet and the percentage who say a free internet is very important, demonstrating that as people gain access to the Web, the salience and desire for freedom in cyberspace also grows.

New developments and curiosities from a changing global media landscape: People, Spaces, Deliberation brings trends and events to your attention that illustrate that tomorrow's media environment will look very different from today's, and will have little resemblance to yesterday's.

When the internet first emerged as a medium (and still often today), digital and non-digital communication were separated into different silos within an organization. While this distinction has blurred for many, new distinctions based on revenue have developed: paid, earned, and owned media.

Paid media is often considered to be ‘traditional advertising’ and includes ads, paid search marketing, ‘pay per click’ advertising, and sponsorships. It usually involves targeting specific audiences in order to create brand awareness or develop new customers. Owned media is the content that an organization creates itself and includes an organization's website, blog posts, email newsletters, and social media. It usually involves targeting an organization’s existing community or current customers.

Earned media is theresult of public relations and media outreach, ad campaigns, events, and other content that is created through an organization’s owned media. Brands may hire a PR firm to reach out to the media, influencers may pitch or demoralize a brand on TV and social media, and consumers may talk about an organization on social media or in product reviews.

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

#Davosproblems: The financial crisis isn‘t over, and the inequality crisis is just beginning
Quartz
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting has kicked off in Davos, Switzerland under the banner of “The New Global Context.” Falling in the long shadow of the financial crisis, the WEF’s theme reflects as much hope as a creeping sense that economic turmoil is the new normal. Some seven years into the current crisis, the participants at Davos are acutely aware that the world economy still hasn’t recovered its past momentum.

The Power of Market Creation, How Innovation Can Spur Development
Foreign Affairs
Most explanations of economic growth focus on conditions or incentives at the global or national level. They correlate prosperity with factors such as geography, demography, natural resources, political development, national culture, or official policy choices. Other explanations operate at the industry level, trying to explain why some sectors prosper more than others. At the end of the day, however, it is not societies, governments, or industries that create jobs but companies and their leaders. It is entrepreneurs and businesses that choose to spend or not, invest or not, hire or not.

New developments and curiosities from a changing global media landscape: People, Spaces, Deliberation brings trends and events to your attention that illustrate that tomorrow's media environment will look very different from today's, and will have little resemblance to yesterday's.

The following graphic predicts the global extinction of newspapers (in their current form), starting with publications in North America, followed by Europe and East Asia, and reaching South Asia, Africa and South America last. Internationally, some of the factors contributing to the death of newspapers include huge losses in advertising revenues, ad-supported search engines, the rise in availability of mobile phones and other mobile devices; the increase in paid content and paywalls; and increased technology adoption and economic development around the world.

“30 people, some of them friends, some others strangers, put together their skills in one place for one cause: beating corruption while having fun programming, coding, testing and, when things did not work out, starting all over again. The goal was making one good idea become reality by the end of 24 hours.

In Bogotá, Colombia, hackers and developers were full of energy when they arrived at Academia Wayra at 5PM where the ‘Hacks Against Corruption’ hackathon took place the Saturday before last.

Their commitment was really amazing! They literally did not stop working for 24 hours.” READ MORE